“I don’t think I want to be here anymore,” Chloe said, looking down at her algebra homework on the kitchen island. She was sixteen, and she was chewing on a yellow Ticonderoga pencil with a broken eraser.

She said it completely calmly. It was a Tuesday night, exactly 9:14 PM. The overhead fluorescent bulb in our small kitchen was humming, a dull sound I usually ignored but suddenly found incredibly loud.

My brain stopped working for a second. I didn’t shake, but I felt my jaw lock as I stared at the numbers she had written on her paper.

“Chloe, look at me,” I said. My voice sounded thin, like paper tearing.

She didn’t look up. She just kept her eyes on her notebook, her finger tracing the edge of her blue binder. I had bought her that binder at the Target in Kenosha during the back-to-school sales. I remembered thinking how expensive twenty dollars was for a piece of plastic. Now, looking at it, I felt sick.

I reached for the green magnet on our refrigerator. It was the one from Oak Creek High School, with the little wildcat mascot on it. The school had handed them out to every parent during the orientation assembly back in August. It had the twenty-four-hour student crisis hotline printed in white letters.

I dialed the number on my cell phone. I set it to speakerphone.

A recorded voice answered almost immediately. It was a woman’s voice, pre-recorded and entirely flat.

“Your call is important to us,” the voice said. “Please remain on the line for the next available operator.”

Then, a tinny, digital version of some classical song started playing. It sounded like it was coming from a music box with a dying battery.

“We’re waiting,” I told Chloe, trying to make my voice sound like an ordinary mother taking care of an ordinary problem. “They’re going to talk to us, okay?”

Chloe didn’t say anything. She stood up from the barstool. She didn’t look at me, but she started walking down the short hallway toward the bathroom.

“I’m just going to wash my face,” she said.

I don’t even know why I remember this part, but she had reorganized my spice rack three days before. She had put the cinnamon next to the garlic powder, which didn’t make any sense. I had meant to fix it, but I hadn’t gotten around to it. I stood there in the kitchen, holding the phone, staring at the spice rack.

Ten minutes passed.

“Please continue to hold,” the recorded voice said. The classical music restarted from the beginning.

Twenty minutes.

I walked to the end of the hallway. The bathroom door was shut, but I could hear the faucet running. The sound of water hitting the porcelain was steady.

“Chloe?” I called out. “They’re still putting us on hold. I’m still here.”